Shakespeare’s 450th birthday. Check.
Shakespeare’s deathday in 1616. Check.
Cervantes’s deathday in 1616. Check.
UNESCO International Day of the Book. Check.
Saint George’s Day (and slaying some dragons, but really why would you want to do that? What did the dragons ever do you to?). Check.
People in Spain celebrating by giving a book and a flower to a loved one (how totally cool is that?). Check.
World Book Night! CHECK!
So World Book Night http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/ was first celebrated in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2011 and was so popular that by 2012 it was celebrated in the United States and Germany. Today in the US over 25,000 volunteers around the country are give away over 500,000 million free books. To be a book giver, you had to apply and list your three suggested titles from that years list of titles (37 different titles this year) to be given away. I picked up my books last week and today gave away 20 copies of “The Zookeeper’s Wife” by By Diane Ackerman. It was so much fun to give away a good book to a good home!
